you brought it on yourself miss twiddle

Ticked off two more things on the retirement checklist this morning: getting copies of the two paystubs that I was still missing, and getting my official "retirement gift" from the attaboy catalog. As usual, the catalog offerings were mostly either "already have one" or "no use for this" but in the end I settled on a wet/dry shop vac. You know, in the event that I ever get back to doing carpentry projects or whatnot. After you pick your primary gift, they roll you over into the gift card section, where you pick gift cards until you run out of remaining balance. So I currently have $250 worth of gift cards for Black Angus Steakhouse that I will be looking for a special occasion to use.

Most of the IRA activity is complete -- I have confirmation and documents for one of the annuities and for the managed fund (the "pretend this doesn't exist for now" fund). I should get the confirmation and paperwork for the other annuity shortly. I've updated my budget projections spreadsheet and concluded that the annuities are probably over-deducting for taxes, but I think I'll let it ride for now. This year is going to be completely weird for income taxes and I'd rather get a refund than have to pay. Next year I can fine tune things, and the year after that I should be able to predict fairly precisely.

Oh, and still waiting on Social Security to come through. I think on Friday I'll do another round of sitting on the phone to check in. (I check the website almost every day, on the chance that an approval will show up there before I get it in the mail.)

In the mean time, I'm continuing with an overstuffed calendar. Mon/Tues in Stockton to run medical errands for my dad. This morning recording an interview for the podcast, then working with the electrician who will be re-doing my electrical panel. In a couple hours I'll do a guest appearance by zoom for a college class that read one of my books. Tomorrow the electrician starts and completes the panel work, mostly while I'm out of the house for a combined bike ride and routine medical check-up. (I figure since they sent me a pre-work questionnaire about my exercise, I'll properly impress them if I show up in my bike togs all sweaty.) Online Wiscon is this weekend, then Monday the HVAC folks come to do my annual maintenance. And then I have nothing extra scheduled for a week and a half before the Nebula conference (which I'm attending virtually). June is pretty empty at this point, but the way things have been going, who knows?

Today I had a long, productive session with my Fidelity Guy. We rolled over my 401K into an IRA, then set up 4 different instruments to move the money into. I'm putting about half my money into two different types of annuity which, together with my Social Security (still waiting for approval) should cover my current monthly budget (which includes allowances for "special topics" and adding to my emergencies fund). Most of the rest goes into a managed investment fund that shouldn't need to be touched currently. Then a small chunk goes into a cash account that will be available for "topping off" my checking account, if necessary, to keep it at my safety target.

Let me explain "safety target". Currently my "ordinary" credit union accounts (i.e., separate from my IRA funds) include:

* A "pretend this doesn't exist" savings that is for major unexpected costs.

* A couple of smallish IRA accounts from previous jobs that are functionally part of my "pretend this doesn't exist" money.

* My "saving for special projects/trips" savings account. The plan is to have a "safety threshold" that it shouldn't get below, so the target is to keep it at "safety threshold + known projected special project costs". For example, for Worldcon the projected costs include transportation, hotel, and food budget (higher per diem than when eating at home). My planning spreadsheet includes the next year's worth of special projects with estimates of cost. When things settle out, the idea is that if I add a future special project I block out the projected cost and need to make sure I save for it.

* My checking account. This is where routine expenses come from. It also has a "safety threshold" that it shouldn't fall below. Right now, I dumped all my "extra payout" funds (bonus, vacation payout) because I need to be able to work from it until I have the Social Security and annuity money coming in. (The annuity payouts don't start until July. The Social Security will include back-pay back to February when it gets approved, but in the mean time I'm working from my existing balance.)

The take-home lesson for those of you thinking about retirement planning, is that when they say you should have X months of cash in the bank, that includes because there may be a gap between stopping your paycheck and starting drawing from your retirement funds. It really really helped for my peace of mind to get a big bonus check and a big vacation payout right around my retirement date.

And how does retirement feel? Well, I've been back from Kalamazoo for 3 days now and each day has felt like one of those weekend days when I'm running around getting things done that I don't have time for on working days. Still working on the daily routine, but so far the constants have been a bike ride, reading/writing for the blog/podcast, yard work, and housework/organization. Which leaves me fairly tired at the end of the day, but I've been trying to avoid going to bed early because somehow I've started waking up around 5am and I simply don't feel like getting out of bed that early.

I think the rest of May will play out similarly. I have non-routine events scheduled almost every day for the next week and a half. No chance to feel at loose ends yet.

My Amtrak experience (to Kalamazoo) has been fun and interesting...and I'm ready to be home now. Although we're just about to go through the Sierras and I'll be in the dining car for that, which has great views.

The train was delightfully on time heading east -- in fact, we got into Chicago early enough that I could change to an earlier Kalamazoo train and be on the same one as Lauri (though she was in Business so we couldn't sit together). Heading west, we had a 6 hour hold-up in Salt Lake City due to police action on the tracks (rumor mill says something about a shooting). So here we are in Reno around the time that we were originally supposed to be arriving in the Bay Area.

Kalamazoo was fun, as always. I may jot down some thoughts on the sessions in my Alpennia blog when I have some brain back. (Train travel doesn't drain my brain as bad as airplanes do. I've gotten a bunch of reading/note-taking for the LHMP blog, polished the script for the next podcast, worked on data transcription for my "what do fans think is a Related Work anyway?" paper. Didn't manage to do a full clean-up of my email inbox like I'd been thinking, largely because there's no wifi and although I can tether my phone, the reception goes in and out regularly.

Part of the fun of being a sleeper-car passenger on Amtrak is that all meals are included and you get sorted into random dining groups to fill up the tables. Most of my meals have included fascinating conversations about where people are from, where they're going, etc. Lunch today turned into talking lesbian fiction and I sold a book and picked up a new podcast listener.

A large proportion of the sleeper-car set (i.e., people who can afford the substantial cost) seem to be retirees doing a lot of traveling, including a fair number of foreign tourists. But then there are some people who simply don't fly but are heading for family weddings and reunions and that sort of thing.

I've spent most of my non-meal time hanging out in my cubicle, which gets views almost as good as those in the Observation Car. The sleeping arrangement is about equivalent to camping in my car (i.e., questionable mattress and cramped conditions for changing) but much superior to flying.

And we're about to pull out of Reno, so I'd better post this before I lose signal.